Game devs speak out on Valve, Steam and conflict of interest

In the wake of some recent comments made by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, Ars …

In a recent interview, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford—the developer behind the upcoming Borderlands—revealed some surprising opinions about Valve's Steam digital distribution platform. While the common sentiment among both gamers and developers tends to be positive, Pitchford told Maximum PC that "I don't trust Valve" and that he believes "a lot of the industry doesn't" as well.

Pitchford's main criticism is that with Valve being both a game developer and a platform holder, this situation creates "so much conflict of interest...that it's horrid." According to the Gearbox CEO, Valve's position allows them to exploit developers who use Steam to distribute their games. Given the surprising nature of these comments, Ars contacted several game developers to see just how widespread these opinions are.

"I agree with Pitchford about there being potential for conflict of interest and abuse of power, but I haven't seen even the faintest sign of this power being abused," Ron Carmel from World of Goo developer 2D Boy told Ars. "Quite the contrary, Valve offers the most developer-friendly terms for digital distribution in the industry. Do you know the saying 'there's nothing better than a good king and nothing worse than a bad one'? I think it applies here, and Steam has clearly been a good king so far."

Dylan Fitterer, whose rhythm game Audiosurf was released on Steam in February of last year, agrees, telling Ars, "If this is exploitation, more please." Audiosurf has achieved some great success on the platform, and still remains one of the top sellers in the indie games section of Steam. "In my experience, Valve has been an amazing business partner," Fitterer added.

"We put Steam as one of the A-list distribution channels, up there with XBLA and WiiWare," Telltale CTO Kevin Bruner told Ars over the phone. With a line-up consisting entirely of episodic gaming series, digital distribution is obviously something that is very important to Telltale. In addition to Steam, Telltale's games are available to purchase via the company's own online store, as well as other portals like Direct2Drive. But Bruner still has the utmost respect for Valve's service.

"Steam may be one the greatest things to happen recently," he told Ars. With its unique distribution model, Telltale has had issues with other digital portals in the past, but not once with Valve, which he describes as being "very accommodating."

As for the whole conflict of interest issue, none of the developers we spoke to were very worried.

"We've done third-party digital distribution in the past as well," Bruner explained, though it's not something Telltale has dabbled in recently. Still, according to Bruner, the concept of conflict of interest in a digital space is pretty much non-existent: without the financial and logistical barriers of retail, if you don't like what a particular online portal is doing, you can simply set up your own online store or move to another platform.

We were also unable to find any developers who would admit to feeling exploited by Valve. Quite the opposite actually. Jakub Dvorsky, from Machinarium developer Amanita Design, told Ars that Valve offers a comparable, and in many cases higher, revenue percentage when compared with other digital distribution outlets. And for a small independent developer, this makes all the difference.

"I think it's very good service," Dvorsky explained. "It works well and it encourages some people to favor digital copies to boxed versions, which is great for indie developers."

As for why Pitchford made these comments in spite of the seemingly overwhelmingly positive response we gathered from other developers, we're still unsure. Fitterer believes it may have something to do with drumming up some controversy with the impending release of Borderlands. Which, by the way, is receiving a very nice promotion on Steam right now.